I, too, have found sprouted seeds in a tomato. It was a red tomato, and it was last fall (not too far from when yours was!). There were only 2 or 3 sprouted. I ate it anyway. I lived. So far. I just found your site, and am systematically reading all of it (and procrastinating doing some work). Keep it up!
-sw

A friend of mine found a needle in her tastycake. She pulled it out and we managed to convince her to continue eating. "What are the odds there will be two needles in one tastycake?" Of course there was another one and she too got free coupons as compensation.

Tomato plants are a night shade. I read on another site that the sprouts, leaves and green fruit are toxic. So you don't want to eat the sprouts. It also said that bell peppers are supposed to be red and yellow, green bell peppers are not ripe and have the toxin also.

Another lady told me that she had this happen. Her tomatoes were stored at room temperature and in a green bag. I was wondering if it might have something to do with the green bag causing that coating on the seeds to break down. Just a thought. I'm curious as to how many had this happen to tomatoes that were stored in a green bag. Anybody ?

the primary mechanism is the absorption of ethylene gas. ethylene gas is what makes fruits ripen.

so,,,,,,, if the ethylene is made to not be effective, and you keep the fruit "unspoiled looking" for a few dozen weeks, lotta things can happen inside a tomato.

I am extremely amused at the folks who rave about keeping their fresh vegetables for weeks in "green bags."

now, keep in mind, these are often the same folks who will not use a nasty chemically coated Teflon pan because some mysterious unidentified compound they heard about on the 2 AM shopping channel where "they" said "it's bad for you."

but they have no problem with putting their food in direct contact with magic pixie dust (bat guano and ground minerals from caves in south america, somewhere, and not at a fair trade price either, I suspect, just to take care of the raving econo-loonies along with the ecolog-loonies....)

whatever "stuff" is on/in the green bags is not revealed/disclosed, nor does not last forever; it absorbs some amount of ethylene gas and then it's shot - throw it away. at the price of those bags / containers, some simple math will prove very instructive as to how many pounds of vegetables you can buy and throw away when the excess spoils vs the cost of keeping it forever (not) in a green bag.

I just bought a pack of Roma tomatoes from Costco (I think there were 8-12 in the pack). Every single one of them was either sprouting or in the early stages of sprouting. i have seen this once or twice before, but not in such large quantity. It's kind of weird. I am wondering about the comment the man from Ann Arbor made about cooling the tomatoes and then them rewarming. I am wondering if they might be chilled too much in the travel process and then warm up again too fast in the store where they are being sold? I mean, that seems to be the only scientific evidence that someone has given. Sure Monsanto and etc are doing wacky stuff, but surely this has to happen in nature for a species to reproduce and survive. So maybe it is more environmental than due to GMO's? Maybe certain varieties are more sensitive than others? Does anyone know anymore scientific evidence vs. hearsay?

There are also large-scale strategies to minimize it (about 4 people on any given shift are responsible for locating and removing seasoning accum. from the machinery) - but with 15,000,000 bags per week at our plant alone, a few are bound to get through.